Heretic early-game redesign

[PowerfulBacon]

Dependencies

Depends on #11760

About The Pull Request

Starts the early branch changes of the heretic redesign, each layer is relatively independant so I thought I'd PR this seperately since I think it works alone. This PR attempts to address the 2 main aspects of heretics that I wish to change

• New players starting with heretics find themselves struggling to get a sacrifice because of how good people are at running away and reporting themselves in danger. All the starter paths now have the ability to prevent the target from calling for help, and typically will have something else that makes it harder for a target to get away.
• Ashen passage is simply unfair and unfun to deal with.

Changes:

• Mansus fist deals 4 seconds of silence instead of 30 seconds which came as a result of a bug.

Ash Path:

• Ash path will apply an EMP effect to the headset of anyone touched with mansus grasp. This lasts for 20 seconds.
• Mansus grasp now blinds the victim like it says it does.

Ashen Passage:

• Cooldown increased to 90 seconds from 25
• Jaunt behaviour completely removed, you will now remain on the ethereal plane
• Allows the user to move through airlocks.
• The user gains full invulnerability
• The user's appearance changes to look like ash
• If the user attacks a mob, the ashen passage will cancel
• The effect expires after 12 seconds.
• Note that flesh mobs with ashen passage will keep their jaunt-version of the ashen passage ability.
• Now has a status effect that tells you how long it lasts for.
• The user will ignore damage slowdowns while in the passage.

Flesh Path

• Mansus grasp no longer raises ghouls when used on a soulless body.
• Mansus grasp applies a new status effect, flesh decay, on anybody it is used on.
• Flesh decay mutes a target while it is active.
• Flesh decay adds a small slowdown while active.
• Flesh decay applies a constant bleed rate of 1 while active.
• Flesh decay applies 1 brute damage every 4 seconds it is active.
• Flesh decay ends when a target bandages the bleeding caused by it, or enters soft crit.
• Flesh decay can only apply to 1 victim at a time, with the old one being deleted when a new one is applied.

Void Path

• Knife recipe no longer requires sub-zero temperatures
• Knife recipe requires that there is no snow around the rune
• Knife recipe spawns snow around the rune when activated.
• Mansus grasp mute duration increased to 8 seconds
• Mansus grasp now applies direct slowdown on top of the body temperature reduction for 12 seconds

Rust Path

• Recipe changed to require water instead of trash.
• Mansus grasp rust effect changed, it no longer applies an instant 500 damage but instead applies a rust effect which damages the target over time.
• If the target moves far away from the heretic (or vice-versa), then the rust effect will stop.
• Rust now affects living lifeforms by disabling their headset until the effect is removed.
• Rust now affects vehicles, causing damage to them. This will eventually cause secways to explode.
• Rust damage now has some armour penetration on machines and structures, to make them able to break airlocks.

Why It's Good For The Game

Newer players getting started with heretic find it exceptionally difficult due to how any slight slip-up will have security on your location within seconds, with you being unable to do much at that point early on. This PR aims to make all the early paths

The status effects on the flesh and rust path have been designed to be relatively defensive spells, the target at any time has the option to flee the area and remove the status effect.

Ash path has simply gained headset disabling on the early-game mansus grasp. This reduces the risk of a victim instantly calling for help while disregarding their life.

Flesh path had the ghoul removed, because it honestly wasn't that useful and flesh should focus on small numbers of powerful mobs rather than large numbers of useless mobs (player-count restrictions are why we need to design like this).

The flesh path ability is a defensive spell that is debilitating to a person while active but can be removed by pulling out of a fight. If you are alone, then having this applied to you will almost certainly have you sacrificed but it can only apply to 1 person at a time, limiting its effectiveness against groups. If you manage to escape, you can't call for help or ignore the status effect until you seek assistance.

The void path has been made a lot more friendly towards newer players, and my over-arching goal is to make it the path that focuses on items that are better for new players. The knife recipe was far too hard to achieve unless you had a very specific job role so it has been made easier. The slowdown is now direct because the slowdown coming from bodytemperature was too slow and made it too easy for a target to run away. The mute was extended to prevent a target calling for help so easilly.

The rust path blade was changed to water instead of trash, since trash is relatively common if you know what it is but otherwise a little bit annoying to get your hands on. The rust effect itself was just completely unfair, instantly killing cyborgs. It now affects humans by muting their equipment and damages cyborgs/structures slowly over time.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Mansus fist deals 4 seconds of silence instead of 30 seconds which came as a result of a bug.

Ash path will apply an EMP effect to the headset of anyone touched with mansus grasp. This lasts for 20 seconds.

Mansus grasp now blinds the victim like it says it does.
Mansus grasp no longer raises ghouls when used on a soulless body.

Mansus grasp applies a new status effect, flesh decay, on anybody it is used on.

Flesh decay mutes a target while it is active.

Flesh decay adds a small slowdown while active.

2024-11-03.12-39-42.mp4

Flesh decay applies a constant bleed rate of 1 while active.

(Note that this goes down to 0.8 due to how bleeding works)

Flesh decay applies 1 brute damage every 4 seconds it is active.

Flesh decay ends when a target bandages the bleeding caused by it, or enters soft crit.

Flesh decay can only apply to 1 victim at a time, with the old one being deleted when a new one is applied.

2024-11-03.12-41-10.mp4

Knife recipe no longer requires sub-zero temperatures
Knife recipe requires that there is no snow around the rune
Knife recipe spawns snow around the rune when activated.

2024-11-03.12-44-32.mp4

Mansus grasp mute duration increased to 8 seconds

Mansus grasp now applies direct slowdown on top of the body temperature reduction

Recipe changed to require water instead of trash.

2024-11-03.13-32-29.mp4

Mansus grasp rust effect changed, it no longer applies an instant 500 damage but instead applies a rust effect which damages the target over time.

2024-11-03.13-29-40.mp4

If the target moves far away from the heretic (or vice-versa), then the rust effect will stop.

Rust now affects living lifeforms by disabling their headset until the effect is removed.

Ashen Passage

Video was too large to upload:

Changelog

🆑
fix: Godmode now prevents bleeding
fix: Heretic mansus grasp applying 30 seconds of mute fixed, changed to 4 (since life ticks every 2 seconds).
balance: Ashen passage reworked, it now provides the ability to move through airlocks and grants invulnerability but doesn't grant ethereal status.
balance: Removed flesh mansus grasp reviving soulful corpses into husks.
balance: Flesh mansus grasp now applies flesh decay, and effect which mutes, slows and damages a target until that target applies a bandage. It can only affect 1 target at a time.
balance: Rust heretic mansus grasp now rusts objects over time, rather than dealing an instant 500 damage, making it not an insta-kill against borgs. It also damages vehicles like secways now. If the heretic or the victim move too far away from each other, the effect will be cancelled.
balance: Rust blade recipe changed to water instead of trash.
balance: Void blade recipe changed to create snow and no longer requires sub-zero temperatures.
balance: Void mansus grasp now applies direct slowdown and mutes the target.
balance: Ash grasp now blinds the target and will disable their headset for 20 seconds.
/:cl:

[PowerfulBacon]

Frozen pending #11760